I thought for a time I'd never write this item: That I'd literally keel over in front of my keyboard in a couple of decades, and leave behind a post with even more typos than usual.

Instead, this is my last blog item. You'll still find my columns every week over on the front page of POLITICO. But I wanted to say thanks before handing over the keys.

I'd like to thank, in particular, my regular readers and correspondents, dozens of whom I’d call friends, and some of whom I’ve been in an email correspondence with since 2005. Many favorite items are the ones emailed in by perceptive or well-placed readers, and I hope my respect for that highest common denominator of news junkies has been clear. I feel like I actually know my audience, a rare luxury in this business, though something that's become increasingly possible.

I’m also thrilled to maintain my relationship with POLITICO, where I’ve had the incredible privilege of working for bosses – Jim VandeHei, John Harris, and Bill Nichols – who’ve always had something to teach me not just about the craft of reporting but the substance of politics and policy. They've also been remarkably open to the changing medium, willing to give me enough virtual rope to hang myself on this blog many times over.

I have too many great colleagues and editors to list, but want to mention three. I’ve had the best reporting partnership of my career here, with Jonathan Martin, a truly great and devoted reporter who couldn't imagine how I – or anyone – would give up one of the truly great political reporting jobs. And this really became a dream job when POLITICO hired two of my closest and smartest friends in the profession, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, out of our old shared basement office in New York City Hall.

Along with my POLITICO column, I'll be striking out into some new online space at BuzzFeed starting January 1, but this blog isn’t going away. I’ve followed my interests in recent months toward a beat that focuses on the intersection of politics and media, and the dangerous and talented Dylan Byers – who has been on fire since he started here this Fall -- will continue to to explore and expand that conversation. Please treat him with all the copious respect and deference I always got.

But campaign watchers are hard-pressed to detect a tilt by the network toward one candidate. Even the two candidates who have worked for Fox News as on-air contributors, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, don’t appear to have had any special access or advantage during the campaign.

Fox doesn't like these stories, because they imply that it's something other than an ordinary news organization; but it's certainly more ordinary than it has been at times in the past.

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Former Edwards aide Jonathan Prince noted recently that Rick Santorum's path this year seems a lot like John Edwards's near-miss 2004 bid, in which he worked Iowa for months with no evident results, then surged into second place at the last moment, propelling him onto the ticket if not into the top slot.

And a reader points out this 2004 AP article on the state of the race, printed the day before the caucuses:

John Kerry and John Edwards are surging close to Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt to create an electoral free-for-all going in to the state's Democratic presidential caucuses on Monday.

Polls in the state suggest all four are competing for the lead within the margins of error. A Research 2000 poll released Thursday showed Dean at 22%, Kerry at 21%, Gephardt at 18% and Edwards at 18%. The undecided vote was at 13% and other candidates were in single digits.

"Any one of those four could win," said pollster Del Ali of Research 2000, who conducted the poll for KCCI-TV of Des Moines. "The biggest surge without question is Edwards. Both Kerry and Edwards have momentum."

A Research 2000 poll released a week ago found Dean (29 percent) and Gephardt (25 percent) battling for the lead with Kerry in third place at 18% and Edwards at 8%.

After losing ground in polls in New Hampshire, Kerry has been campaigning hard in Iowa to create a spark for his struggling campaign. Edwards has been lagging in polls throughout the year, but has been energized by the recent Iowa campaigning, especially after being endorsed by The Des Moines Register.

Edwards had positioned himself like Santorum: He had the discipline to stay out of the fray, and as voters turned away from wounded front-runners, he was a known, reliable quantity.

Edwards also had in the Register endorsement the kind of moment Santorum has lacked so far — outside validation to affirm and accelerate the trend. The rough equivalent would be a late endorsement from Steve King.

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A political action committee which had planned to support Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign has very quietly defected to Mitt Romney — and it's spending big on his behalf.

Citizens for a Working America, the so-called Super PAC which aired TV ads against a Democratic congressional candidate last year, had indicated earlier this year that it was backing the Minnesota congresswoman in the GOP nominating contest. But the group instead made a $475,000 Iowa ad buy on Christmas Eve in support of Romney, according to Federal Election Commission data published today.

The so-called independent expenditure was listed as supporting Romney's candidacy, and an Iowa political operative who has seen the ad confirmed to The Daily that it's a 30-second positive spot about the former Massachusetts governor that doesn't mention any other candidate.

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Mitt Romney just announced a strikingly aggressive schedule from Dec. 30 through Jan. 3, an all-in Iowa push.

That means, among other things, that his press corps may turn up late to this kind of classically pork-heavy Iowa party for media and political types, per the state GOP, called "Raucous Before the Caucus":

Entertainment will be provided by local band Flipside. All food and beverage will highlight local samplings provided by Hy-Vee, Iowa Pork Producers, Templeton Rye and highlights from Bacon Fest. The World Food Prize will play host to the event, making this their first national media reception.

Some fun tidbits — Bauders famous peppermint ice cream bars from the Iowa State Fair will be served along with Baby Boomers "Obama" cookie ... plus, late-night pizza from Casey's General Stores — best pizza in Iowa! Templeton Rye will be serving up their special batch while Bacon Fest will serve over 1,200 bacon-on-a-stick.

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David Frum raises the basic question about Paul's newsletters, which isn't belief but intent:

A fellow libertarian offers more detail on Paul's racism-as-strategy. Paul and his circle aspired "to create a libertarian-conservative fusion ... [by] appealing to the worst instincts of working/middle class conservative whites by creating the only anti-left fusion possible with the demise of socialism: one built on cultural issues. ... [The strategy] apparently made some folks (such as Rockwell and Paul) pretty rich selling newsletters predicting the collapse of Western civilization at the hands of the blacks, gays and multiculturalists. The explicit strategy was abandoned by around the turn of the century but not after a lot of bad stuff had been written in all kinds of places."

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The newest salvo from Romney's super PAC auxiliary is aimed at the usual target, Newt Gingrich.

Something to watch for in the closing days: Will the group turn its fire on Rick Santorum? If it does, it would be the clearest sign yet that Romney is playing to win Iowa; Gingrich, however, seems to represent more of a threat in the states to come.

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Even as Gingrich gets tangled up in whether he should condemn his super PAC's negative mail, the Paul campaign keeps swinging away at "hypocrites" and "serial flip-floppers."

It seems hard to argue that there's been a more effective paid media presence this cycle — or any really effective paid media at all — outside the Paul barrage, which has made others' attacks look mild by comparison.

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In another clear sign he’s playing to win, he has quietly moved a handful of staffers from his headquarters in Boston and in other states earlier this month to give his skeleton Iowa staff a needed boost. And he’s cycling in a platoon of high-profile surrogates to rally around him in the state at stump stops and on talk radio, including Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. John Thune, Rep. Aaron Schock and former Sens. Norm Coleman and Jim Talent.

Among Romney’s Iowa backers, there was a marked rise in confidence Tuesday.

“I think we’re going to do better than most people expect us to do,” said state Rep. Renee Schulte, a top Cedar Rapids Romney supporter.

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The letter calls attention to several grievances. Last week, Times brass notified foreign citizens employed in the paper's overseas bureaus that their pensions would be frozen. In the letter, Times staffers dismayed by this decision point out to Sulzberger that some of these foreign employees, working alongside Times reporters in war zones, have "risked their lives so that we can do our jobs."

The Times newsroom is, more than at other institutions, a force beyond its formal Guild representation; the ouster of Howell Raines after the Jayson Blair mess was the product of, as much as anything else, a newsroom revolt.